1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming system and an image forming apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
A technique for managing image forming apparatuses, (such as printers) by an external apparatus (such as a terminal apparatus) using Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) has been available. In this technique, management information on image forming apparatuses is held by Management Information Bases (MIBs). The MIBs have a tree data structure. In the MIBs, the management information is registered as MIB objects, which are each assigned an object identifier (OID).
Some image forming apparatuses have a function for counting the number of occurrences of events for each event type and storing the number of occurrences as a counter value. Thus, counter values can be obtained from image forming apparatuses via SNMP.
Because image forming apparatuses support a multiplicity of event types, a large number of counter values generally exist. Thus, in a case where a large number of counter values are stored together as one counter data (one MIB object), reference data is required for specifying the positions of counter values of the event type in the counter data. For example, when the counter data is sequence data, the index of an element of the sequence data is used as the reference data.
In a case where the reference data includes separate reference data for each event type, a terminal apparatus obtains the reference data for each event type, and obtains the counter data from an image forming apparatus. Then, the terminal device extracts a requested counter value at a position specified by the reference data from the count data.
FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an exemplary process 600 of the related art in which a terminal apparatus 602 obtains a plurality of counter values from an image forming apparatus 604. The terminal apparatus 602 detects a request for a counter value (step S0). The terminal apparatus 602 then sends a request for the transmission of reference data for a first event type (reference data #1) to the image forming apparatus 604 (step S1). In response, the image forming apparatus 604 transmits reference data #1 to the terminal apparatus 602 (step S2). The terminal apparatus 602 then requests the image forming apparatus 604 to transmit reference data for a second event type (reference data #2) in step S3. In response, the image forming apparatus 604 transmits reference data #2 to the terminal apparatus 602 (step S4). This process of requesting and transmitting reference data repeats a number of times equal to the number of event types (N) (steps S5 and S6).
Once the terminal apparatus 602 has received the reference data for all the N event types, it specifies the index of the counter value 620 (step S7), which identifies the position of the counter value in the counter data for the desired event type. The terminal apparatus 602 then transmits a request for all the counter data to the image forming apparatus 604 (step S8). In response, the image forming apparatus 604, transmits the counter data to the terminal apparatus 602 (step S9). The terminal apparatus 602 then extracts the counter value from the counter data (step S10) corresponding to the position of the counter value identified by the index specified in step S7.
Thus, it is necessary to perform a data obtaining process of at least the number of times equal to the total number of the reference data for each event type and the counter data. Thus, it is difficult to obtain counter values that are stored in an image forming apparatus in for short time.